I don’t know why they hired me. I was an over-confident, 23-year-old college grad with a pretty impressive resume, well impressive for someone going into journalism or political science. The “they” was a growing church in Texas that was running over 2,000 people on Sundays that needed an associate student pastor.

I had next-to-no experience in student ministry, but less than a month after I graduated from college, I found myself sitting in my own office, with my own nameplate, collecting a very generous salary. I should have been overwhelmed with gratitude. I should have been humbled by the church’s faith in me.

Nope.

However, I did get in an argument . . . with the senior pastor . . . over one of my radical, “change everything” ideas . . . in front of the entire staff . . . at my very first staff retreat.